The federal-state Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force released a wide-ranging list of strategies Wednesday for repairing damage done to Gulf of Mexico ecosystems by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and by other long-term threats. The task force was appointed a year ago by President Barack Obama, who directed it to respond to the dangers posed by both the oil spill and other threats facing the Gulf of Mexico. In meetings across the Gulf Coast, the task force listened to concerns about pollution, overfishing and the loss of critical habitat.

But members were quickly reminded by Louisiana officials that long before the BP spill, the human impacts of oil and gas development and flood protection along the lower Mississippi River and the state’s coastline had created the Gulf’s greatest ecological crisis.

Individual Gulf Coast states added lists of existing and proposed restoration projects as an appendix. Louisiana’s list was not provided in time for inclusion, and will be released next week.

The main report endorses using the majority of Clean Water Act fine money resulting from the oil spill, which could be as much as $20 billion, for Gulf recovery efforts.

“This strategy is designed to prepare the region for transitioning from a response to the spill into a long-term recovery that supports the vital ecosystem and the people who depend on it,” said Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, chairwoman of the task force.

“The health of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem starts and ends with its people and its communities,” she said. “The individuals and families who visit the Gulf, who work in the region, who depend on its resources, and especially those who call it home, know its needs and challenges best. They will be integral to creating and executing this long-term strategy.”

Garret Graves, senior coastal adviser to Gov. Bobby Jindal and co-chairman of the task force, told reporters Wednesday that state officials are pleased with the report’s key points, especially language calling for the Army Corps of Engineers to increase the amount of wetlands it rebuilds with sediment dredged from the Mississippi River, and for speeding up the process the corps uses for restoration projects.

Equally important is the task force’s recommendation that restoring the Gulf and coastal ecology must be considered on par with navigation and flood control in decisions made by the corps and other agencies, Graves said.

“The Task Force’s draft strategy identifies fundamental obstacles that have plagued restoration and protection efforts in Louisiana and other states for decades. The report attempts to begin reversing 80 years of mismanagement,” he said in a prepared statement.

But Graves also said he was disappointed the report didn’t recommend more specific projects and goals, including requiring the corps to use at least 50 percent of dredged material for restoration, and expressing support for new levees protecting residents in coastal communities like Houma.

“In reading the language in the report, it talks about the importance of protecting the habitat, the importance of protecting these diverse communities of species of wildlife and fisheries in coastal Louisiana,” Graves said.

But the same habitat destruction that affects endangered species in Louisiana “also applies to our Cajuns, applies to our citizens in south Louisiana,” he said. “Their habitat is eroding, their future is vulnerable and the future generations are certainly called into question.”

Graves also said it’s vital to ensure the corps moves forward with several billion dollars worth of coastal restoration projects in Louisiana that were approved by Congress in 2007. He and other state officials will request such projects be included in the final version of the report.

Despite Graves’ criticism, the report does stress the relationship between threats to Gulf ecosystems and the ensuing effects on coastal residents.

Jackson said the report’s most important accomplishment is elevating Gulf restoration efforts to national prominence.

“Providing (restoration) an equal footing with navigation and flood damage risk reduction is a very important goal, and it hasn’t been said before by all five states together,” she said.

The America’s WETLAND Foundation praised the report for bringing Louisiana’s coastal land loss to national prominence.

“We have been through numerous federal administrations where making the case for the restoration of valuable wetlands in Louisiana has been all but ignored,” said foundation Chairman King Milling. “Through the efforts of many, Gulf Coast deterioration is now a national concern, where agendas are forming to bring solutions to a crisis situation.”

The New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network, however, criticized the report for not recommending specific restoration projects.

“Where are the measurable goals and outcomes for the restoration agenda?” spokesman Aaron Viles said in a news release. “Where will the money for specific projects come from? How can we be sure that restoration decisions are sound if there is no requirement for independent scientific review and a Science Advisory Committee?”

In the report, the task force adopted four broad goals for its strategy:

Restore water quality, in particular reducing the excess nutrients flowing down the Mississippi River system that create an annual low-oxygen “dead zone” covering an average 6,700 square miles along the coasts of Louisiana and Texas.

Replenish and protect living coastal and marine resources, including depleted populations of fish and wildlife species and their degraded habitats.

Enhance community resilience to a variety of threats, including storm risk, sea-level rise, land loss, natural-resource depletion and compromised water quality.

To accomplish those goals, the task force said it will rely largely on voluntary programs and increased cooperation among coastal states and their inland neighbors, and between the states and the federal agencies that enforce natural resource laws.

The task force acknowledged that the national economic downturn presents challenges.

Jackson said significant savings will result from coordinating restoration projects among the five states and 11 federal agencies on the task force.

It will be crucial to reserve a significant portion of any spill fine money for those restoration efforts, she said.

Graves said he hopes the report is a step “toward recognizing that the best bang for the buck in the country is investing funds down here in coastal Louisiana.”

A final version of the strategy will be completed in December, and over the next six months, the task force will develop more specific short-term, medium-term and long-term tasks aimed at implementing its goals.

The report said coastal communities have relied on levees and navigation structures that “created unintended consequences … by accelerating wetland and barrier island erosion and restricting the flow of vital sediments that had sustained the ecosystem over time.”

In Louisiana, that reliance has played a large part in the state’s loss of 1,883 square miles of coastal land from 1932 to 2010.

The task force recommends the expansion of conservation areas to ensure a landscape that supports both the Gulf ecosystem and the human economy, including forming habitat corridors for key species, such as sea grasses, mangroves, coastal forests and marshes, and farther offshore, Sargassum beds and deep coral reefs.

To address the dead zone and other water-quality issues, the task force recommends a variety of voluntary measures aimed at reducing farmers’ use of fertilizers upriver and projects to capture nutrient runoff. It also endorses the Hypoxia Task Force goal of reducing the average size of the dead zone to less than a third of the present average.

While recent research suggests that new federal support for developing biofuels has resulted in the reuse of marginal farmland in the Midwest, and thus increased nutrients in the Mississippi, Jackson said she doesn’t expect to see that change.

“I don’t think you’re going to see anyone asking the Midwest give up on a new economic growth engine,” she said. “That would be like asking the Gulf to give up on energy production.”

Instead, Jackson said the report’s emphasis on keeping such nutrients out of the rivers will eventually meet the dead zone reduction goal.

Public comments on the report are being accepted until midnight eastern time on Oct. 26. Comments can be submitted at www.epa.gov/gulfcoasttaskforce. The task force will release a final version of the report in December.